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Saturday, January 17, 2009

No "ama"s yet

If you weren't yet convinced that Califoria is a bit... different, you might be thrilled to hear of “Sarah's Smash Shack.” Located in San Diego, the Smash Shack is the place to go if you want to break something into pieces. You can bring your stuff or buy something at location, and you can bring your iPod along to smash with an appropriate background music. Groups get a discount.

Sarah and her staff also provide pens since apparently people like to write names or messages on plates before throwing them on the next wall. Asked what people do write on these plates, Sarah replies

“What we see runs the whole gamut from a simple drawing, to a single word or name, to a mantra, to a soliloquy. We find a few 'uck's and 'it's on the plate fragments, as well as quite a few political 'W's. We haven't found any 'ama's yet.”

14 comments:

I had to laugh when I read your post. Sometimes, I just can't believe how Californian California is. Sitting in cold, conservative Munich, one can really start missing California like hell.

The strangest business concept that I have ever seen was what a man at the boardwalk near Pier 39 in San Francisco was making his money with. He was hiding between a garbage can and a piece of a bush, which he hold in front of him. When people passed by, from time to time he would jump out of his hiding place and yell at them. Of course, there was a large crowd around him watching the spectacle. He had a collecting box in front of him and every time after he terrified a few pedestrians, he asked for money.

The weirdest thing I've seen was a guy in Venice beach, wearing nothing but a long beard and a pink skirt, standing on a broken skateboard, banging on a pot and asking for money. It's not that I like LA so much, but the average person there seems to be so completely nuts I feel very comfortable there. Best,

“Since supposedly 245 babies are born every minute, one in 245 humans is a sucker?”

Well the rate would have been substantially lower in P.T. Barnum’s time, yet still enough to guarantee an amble supply, which Madoff has recently so clearly demonstrated. This gives you more than 1 million in the U.S. alone. Also, to remind that as with any business the first thing is to define and identify your market so that your marketing is focused around finding them and have products or services that are appealing . I think “Sarah's Smash Shack” has done their homework well in this regard. Now if I was in the business of selling swamp land in Florida or pet rocks I would now know of one place where the candidates have been pre-screened.

Just as a follow up of which part was related earlier to Bee in regards to her piece questioning whether science can help in the current crises I pointed out and 2005 article article in Third Culture written by Nassim Taleb a mathematician dedicated to risk assessment in regards to the economy in which he also states the following:

“1) He believes in the stock market because he is told to do so. — automatically allocating a portion of his retirement money. And he does not realize that the manager of his mutual fund does not fare better than chance — actually a bit worse, after the (generous) fees. Nor does he realize that markets are far more random and far riskier that he is being made to believe by the high priests of the brokerage industry.”

“He disbelieves the bishops (on grounds of scientific method), but replaces him with the security analyst. He listens to the projections by security analysts and "experts"— not checking their past accuracy and track record. Had he checked them he would have discovered that these are no better than random — often worse.”

So as demonstrated by reason of our current woes I would argue that P.T. Barnum’s assessment was very low indeed. I think a sign that things have finally turned around is when places like Sarah’s Smash Shack becomes not to be considered as being feasible.

As a final reason for disliking Sarah’s Smash Shack is it will make redundant a husband’s function as serving as a target for his spouse in such normal circumstances. Bee, men are feeling venerable enough these days without adding to our feeling of insecurity:-)

I find it very interesting what the mere existence of this smash shack tells about the status of the country. Consider this: people pay money to write the name of their president on a plate and throw it onto a wall. That's what I'd call a passive agressive nation. Other nations have revolutions. The USA has smash shacks. Best,

You certainly have made an observation I’ve missed, so then one must consider that trying to be behave as being civilized has its draw backs. I think us Canadian’s would be looked upon in this as being in even worse shape, for we have no history of revolution to begin with. Instead of acting on our frustrations we deflect our actions or worse do nothing. So we now have a rise in aliments such as anxiety or depression, for which many resort to medication to only accomplish at best to relieve the symptoms not remove the cause. Then perhaps again we are simply waiting for someone to suggest we eat cake rather then crow.

People paying to smash things is probably some modern adaptation for the basic urge of violence. Seems like it's a very safe version of going to a shooting range or something like that. Some people pay to go to kick-boxing class, and some people pay to destroy things. It's probably cheaper to smash things at the Smash Shack than to smash your own frustrating objects.